Murdock v. Pennsylvania
E74317
First Amendment case
United States Supreme Court case
free exercise of religion case
freedom of speech case
Murdock v. Pennsylvania is a 1943 U.S. Supreme Court case that held it unconstitutional to impose a license tax on the distribution of religious literature, reinforcing First Amendment protections for religious proselytizing.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Murdock v. Pennsylvania canonical | 3 |
| Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T587463 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Murdock v. Pennsylvania Context triple: [Cantwell v. Connecticut, relatedCase, Murdock v. Pennsylvania]
-
A.
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously ruled that Philadelphia violated a Catholic foster care agency’s religious freedom by excluding it from the foster program over its refusal to certify same-sex couples.
-
B.
Brandenburg v. Ohio
Brandenburg v. Ohio is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly strengthened free speech protections by establishing the "imminent lawless action" test for when advocacy of violence can be punished under the First Amendment.
-
C.
County of Allegheny v. ACLU
County of Allegheny v. ACLU is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that refined the interpretation of the Establishment Clause by addressing the constitutionality of religious holiday displays on government property.
-
D.
Betts v. Brady
Betts v. Brady was a 1942 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held indigent defendants in state criminal cases were not automatically entitled to court-appointed counsel, a rule later overturned by Gideon v. Wainwright.
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E.
Printz v. United States
Printz v. United States is a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited federal power by holding that Congress cannot compel state or local officials to implement federal regulatory programs.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Murdock v. Pennsylvania Target entity description: Murdock v. Pennsylvania is a 1943 U.S. Supreme Court case that held it unconstitutional to impose a license tax on the distribution of religious literature, reinforcing First Amendment protections for religious proselytizing.
-
A.
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously ruled that Philadelphia violated a Catholic foster care agency’s religious freedom by excluding it from the foster program over its refusal to certify same-sex couples.
-
B.
Brandenburg v. Ohio
Brandenburg v. Ohio is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly strengthened free speech protections by establishing the "imminent lawless action" test for when advocacy of violence can be punished under the First Amendment.
-
C.
County of Allegheny v. ACLU
County of Allegheny v. ACLU is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that refined the interpretation of the Establishment Clause by addressing the constitutionality of religious holiday displays on government property.
-
D.
Betts v. Brady
Betts v. Brady was a 1942 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held indigent defendants in state criminal cases were not automatically entitled to court-appointed counsel, a rule later overturned by Gideon v. Wainwright.
-
E.
Printz v. United States
Printz v. United States is a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited federal power by holding that Congress cannot compel state or local officials to implement federal regulatory programs.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
First Amendment case
ⓘ
United States Supreme Court case ⓘ free exercise of religion case ⓘ freedom of speech case ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
First Amendment law
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ freedom of speech ⓘ religious liberty ⓘ |
| argued |
1943-03-10
ⓘ
1943-03-11 ⓘ |
| citation | 319 U.S. 105 ⓘ |
| citedIn |
Follett v. Town of McCormick
ⓘ
Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc. v. Village of Stratton ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInvolved |
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
Fourteenth Amendment ⓘ
surface form:
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1943-05-03 ⓘ |
| decisionType | landmark decision ⓘ |
| dissentingOpinionBy |
Felix Frankfurter
ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Felix Frankfurter
Robert H. Jackson ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Robert H. Jackson
|
| docketNumber | 480 ⓘ |
| fullCaseName |
Murdock v. Pennsylvania
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
|
| holding |
A flat license tax on the distribution of religious literature is unconstitutional as applied to religious colporteurs
ⓘ
Freedom of press, speech, and religion cannot be conditioned on the payment of a license tax ⓘ The First Amendment prohibits imposing a license tax on the exercise of religious proselytizing and distribution of religious literature ⓘ |
| joinedByInMajority |
Justice Harlan F. Stone
ⓘ
surface form:
Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone
Justice Frank Murphy ⓘ Hugo L. Black ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Hugo L. Black
Justice Owen J. Roberts ⓘ Justice Wiley B. Rutledge ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
Pennsylvania
ⓘ
surface form:
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
|
| legalIssue | whether a municipality may impose a flat license tax on the distribution of religious literature ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy |
William O. Douglas
ⓘ
surface form:
Justice William O. Douglas
|
| overturnedOrLimitedTaxRegime | municipal license tax on door-to-door distribution of literature ⓘ |
| page | 105 ⓘ |
| partyType | religious colporteurs ⓘ |
| precedentFor |
invalidating license taxes burdening First Amendment rights
ⓘ
protection of door-to-door religious solicitation ⓘ |
| ratioDecidendi | The power to tax the exercise of a constitutional privilege is the power to control or suppress its enjoyment ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Cantwell v. Connecticut
ⓘ
Jones v. City of Opelika ⓘ Lovell v. City of Griffin ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
JehovahsWitnesses
ⓘ
surface form:
Jehovah's Witnesses
free exercise of religion ⓘ freedom of the press ⓘ religious proselytizing ⓘ |
| reporter | United States Reports ⓘ |
| volume | 319 ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1943 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Murdock v. Pennsylvania Description of subject: Murdock v. Pennsylvania is a 1943 U.S. Supreme Court case that held it unconstitutional to impose a license tax on the distribution of religious literature, reinforcing First Amendment protections for religious proselytizing.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania